


A Comfort Serves in a Whirlwind

by dedougal



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedougal/pseuds/dedougal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's an EMT. He's an EMT and his boyfriend just walked into the ER covered in blood and they think he did it and Derek can't remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Comfort Serves in a Whirlwind

**Author's Note:**

> Comedicdrama sent me a picture and told me to write non-werewolf Derek. This is what I ended up with. It's a little different from what I expected it to be and probably a little different from anything I could have written. Title is from the Gerald Manley Hopkins poem which starts "No worst, there is none" which is probably one of my favourites.
> 
> I'm going to stick some warnings here: there is serious injury (not permanent) and a brief mention of suicide.

Derek looked at the gravel between the cracks in the pavement. He should be doing something, saying something. He was trained, a professional. He'd saved lives, in the past. First response, first on the scene, swinging the ambulance as close to the emergency as possible. He helped other people all the time. Why was it that he could do nothing here?

Derek swung back and forward on the swing. He had stumbled out of Stiles’s hospital room, away from the judgmental glares of the others, blindly. He wasn't sure why he'd found his way to the playground. Or even why he'd slumped into a swing. Maybe it was because his legs had given out, stopped working. Stiles liked to tease him about his strength. He liked to have Derek hold him up against walls and doors and kiss him stupid. He called - he used to call... Fuck. Stiles called Derek his strong guy. Derek felt anything but strong right now.

They'd not said anything when Stiles had shown up covered in blood in the ER. Stiles's dad, Scott, Derek's colleagues. They hadn't accused him of anything. They'd just looked as he'd stumbled out of the break room, laughing, and turned to see his boyfriend topple to the ground. They hadn't let him near Stiles - that had been correct procedure even if it hadn't been _right_. Stiles was hurt, that much was clear. It was as if he'd been in a fight, beaten over and over and over. Derek had heard one of the doctors comment that new bruises and cuts just kept showing up no matter what it did. They'd let Derek sit in the break room and wait, but even the (relatively) more comfortable chairs there didn't make the wait for news any easier. Hours and hours had passed before they allowed him to see Stiles again, hours of Derek imagining ever worst possible scenario. No one had blamed him but Derek - just knew - they thought he was to blame, somehow. And even though Derek was completely sure he didn't do anything, something dark and sinister within him whispered that too. It was all his fault.

Derek had no family, no one but Stiles. He'd drifted into Beacon Hills, on the back of an "ill wind", according to Stiles. He'd been restless, an itch under his skin that said move on, you're not welcome here. He'd tried other cities, towns, states. Tried a hundred jobs, or so it felt. And he'd been bone tired as he slid into the booth in the town's diner, building up the strength to keep going, when his waiter had slipped into the seat opposite and introduced himself as "Stiles. Just go with it."

They'd let Stiles's dad go in first - had to. Family first and no matter what Derek was to Stiles, he was not legal, signed and delivered. The nurse had told him more than she probably should, thanks to the whole medical professional courtesy thing, but that hadn't been much. Visiting hours started at seven, Derek had been on shift since five am, but he didn't move until they told him he could go on in.

Stiles had been pale - made paler, perhaps by the crisp white of the sheets. They said he'd lost a lot of blood and there had been words like transfusion and kidney failure and Derek knew them, knew what they meant. Massive internal bleeding at the very least, setting aside the bones that seemed to be breaking all on their own.

Stiles made the worst coffee. It was like paint stripper and cough medicine had made evil, esophagus burning babies. Derek came to the diner every day for a week regardless. It was quietest between two and four, and Derek dropped in then, most often, when Stiles had begun to dance with the mop or sprawl over one of the counter stools and spin lazily around on them. Stiles soon stopped all that to slip into the booth opposite Derek, pour him bad coffee and talk at him. Stiles liked to talk and Derek didn't have to do anything but listen.

He'd started looking for apartments by Wednesday.

The shouts of kids made him look up. They were playing some kind of game - soccer, maybe - on the other side of the park, floodlit shadows too harsh and black against the grass. No one else was in the playground by the swings, not this late. It was just him.

His hands were shaking.

Stiles had tubes and bandages and his pale, pale skin which made his moles stark and his dad was holding his hand and Derek wanted so much to take the other one. But Stiles's dad (who had never trusted him. Not really) was staring at him with suspicion. Scott leaned against the wall behind him, arms crossed. He was breathing shakily. And Derek hadn't stayed. He'd left, out into the late evening and stumbled here unseeing.

Nothing made sense. Not Stiles’s injuries, not the swing, not his fucking life. Derek remembered how he’d promised himself he wouldn’t get complacent. He’d told himself to obey that vague sense that he wasn’t safe here and to move on. Get back on the road. None of that seemed to fit into his life here, with Stiles and the hospital and his job, poker night every third Sunday, waking up to pancakes on his birthday. Derek had been alone so long that he still thought this wasn’t his life, that he didn’t deserve it. When Stiles rolled over him, groaning, to slap at the blaring alarm, that was, always, “too fucking early” and blearily fluttered his eyes open and looked at Derek like he was the best thing to wake up to in the world, Derek always felt this lurch, a sideways pull that said “I shouldn’t be allowed this”.

But. Stiles would lean in and kiss him, morning breath making him wrinkle his nose. He’d scrub his forehead against Derek’s cheek. If Derek was off shift, he might get up while Stiles was showering and make coffee that didn’t taste faintly of motor oil. He’d sit at the table and check the news on his phone. Stiles would shuffle through, dressed now for work, college behind him. Stiles managed to make the shirt and tie ensemble look like something from the start of a porn film, for all that he was respectable and an educator and a role model for young adults, something he liked to remind Derek of when they got drunk and Derek rambled on about what he’d like to do with Stiles and his tie, pressed up against his back while Stiles struggled to get the key in the lock.

Derek needed to get back in there, back to the hospital. The sound of the kid’s voices faded as darkness closed in. Derek was cold but he never felt the cold like Stiles did. Derek would wander around in the thinnest of t-shirts or without, sometimes deliberately, sometimes just because both of them hated laundry, while Stiles layered up in plaid shirts and hoodies and Derek had a flash of how much he liked it when the shirts rode up and gave Derek a flash of belly, pale skin, moles, treasure trail. Derek had a flash of a life without Stiles. He’d return to drifting, no doubt, unable to stay in one place, that weird urge to find something, someone reasserting itself. Or, perhaps, he’d keep going due west and not stop, drive into the ocean and lose himself. If he lost Stiles…

It would be like losing his anchor.

Derek swung himself up off the swing and headed back to the hospital. An ambulance screamed past him and he picked up his pace. He was supposed to be on shift tomorrow at five. He needed to get someone to cover, call in a favor. He needed to call Stiles’s school, let them know he wouldn’t be in tomorrow. He had responsibilities. Of course, all he wanted to do was pull one of the most uncomfortable seats known to man up beside the bed Stiles was in and not move until Stiles was ready to leave.

He was still in uniform. That let him slip through the ER and up onto the floor where critical care was. Derek stood out here, starkly, for all he was in his white shirt and black pants, but he knew the nurse on the desk vaguely. She might even have been the one that opened the supply closet on the fourth floor to find him and Stiles in various states of undress. It had been when Stiles had found out that he’d got the job at the high school and they’d been so high that their lives were going to be perfect that they’d gone further than they should have. Apparently the description of Derek’s chest had been more scintillating than the latest _Grey’s Anatomy_ episode around the lounges. She gave him a sympathetic wave and he crept into the ward.

There were eight beds here, all open so the nurse could keep an eye on everyone. Shades kept the daylight out, soft lamps maintained a constant low light in the room. Stiles was at the far end, alone now. They didn’t let family up here after hours and Derek was definitely abusing his job right now but he found it hard to care. According to the chart at the end of the bed, Stiles was under sedation because he’d been screaming, unceasing and constant. He hadn’t woken up fully at any point and bruises, cuts and broken bones, crushed ribs, an endless stream of injuries kept the doctors confused and off-kilter.

Derek sat beside the bed, head down. He could see Stiles’s hand, lying on the sheet, tape holding the IV needle in place. He kept his hand on his own knee.

The sedation might have kept Stiles quiet but, judging by the way his eyes shifting behind his closed lids, he wasn’t resting peacefully. The machine at his side measuring his heartbeat bleeped faster and Derek started to panic quietly. He couldn’t do anything. He had no idea what this was. A trickle of blood welled up as Stiles’s lip split, spilling down his chin. Derek grabbed a tissue from the side of the bed and wiped it away. Stiles quieted at the touch, his heartbeat slowly to a steady beat again. 

When Derek settled back into his chair, he left his hand under Stiles’s fingers. It felt right. 

 

Stiles had been in his final year of college and living with his dad and scraping by on scholarship and his diner job. Derek had been a placement away from qualifying but his bank balance remained mysteriously full. When he’d found an apartment, a tiny first floor box of a place with a back door that opened straight out onto a dirt track leading right into the heart of the preserve that bounded the town, Derek had asked Stiles out for decent coffee. He’d said yes.

Derek still couldn’t believe that sometimes. Stiles seemed to be breathing easier now, his heart slow and steady, his breathing regular. The wounds on his skin seemed to be appearing less frequently. In fact, the last mark hadn’t been a wound at all. It had been a tattoo, half hidden under the short sleeve of the pajamas Stiles had been dressed in, his own clothes matted with blood. The swirls of the tattoo weren’t familiar to Derek, not like the broad curls on his own back, which he only really remembered because Stiles liked to trail his fingers around its edges. He said Derek purred when he did it. 

Stiles’s tattoo stayed on his skin as Derek kept watch late into the night. He twitched Stiles’s sleeve back to see it clearly, took a picture on his phone. Stiles still didn’t wake but Derek thought he looked better.

An alarm, shrill and insistent, across the room shocked him out of the trance he’d fallen into. He hadn’t been asleep, not dozing. Instead he was still and focused on every rise of Stiles’s chest. He’d come across too many casualties who’d seemed strong and able and then got quieter and stopped breathing little by little.

“Sir, you need to leave.” The nurse from earlier was gone and it was a stranger with a blank face who asked him to go. Derek didn’t want to but the quiet, urgent scurrying on the other side of the ward made him realize his presence was only making this more difficult.

Derek picked up his coat and shuffled out of the room. The hallway was not silent in that way that there were people in soft shoes and holding back tears moving about in a whispered haze. Derek was one of them, now. He wasn’t one of the people giving a sympathetic but supportive nod as he slipped along the corridors and headed out on another job for once. He’d always thought he was helping people when he did that, comforting them. It was a cold comfort, he realized that now.

Stiles’s dad was sprawled out on one of the couches in the break room when Derek finally drifted down, unable to face any more concerned faces. It made sense that they’d let him stay here. Everyone in Beacon Hills knew the Sheriff. Everyone respected him. The first time Derek had bought condoms and lube in the pharmacy, he’d been warned that he better be treating Stiles right as he’d slid a fifty across the counter. When he’d stopped past the bakery to pick up a pie before heading over for the first, official meet-the-parent dinner, they’d insisted he pass on his regards to the Sheriff and handed over an extra bag of cinnamon rolls. People liked the Sheriff, liked Stiles and, as a consequence, probably liked Derek a little more than he deserved. 

Derek covered Stiles’s dad with one of the spare blankets and took his own seat opposite. He tried flicking through the old, battered magazines on the table but nothing grabbed his attention and the constant slither of paper seemed to be disturbing the Sheriff. He tried to regain the state of mind he’d had upstairs but the soft snores coming from the sofa were no substitute for Stiles’s labored breathing. Derek fished out his phone, eyed the picture of the tattoo and wondered. 

Symbols were something Stiles liked to rant about. Mainly in the context of children not keeping them straight in formulae. But he talked about other symbols: Derek giving him a key (he’d had the spare ready in a drawer from the first week they’d known each other) or a drawer (Derek had never filled it with anything). There was the one time Derek had lingered too long outside the jeweler’s window in the mall and Stiles had mocked his adherence to traditional, patriarchal brainwashing and they’d not talked about rings since. But Stiles still made Derek take him to the diner and into their booth every year to the day when they’d met. Symbols mattered to Stiles.

The Sheriff rolled over and faced the back of the couch and Derek decided he needed to do something. Images were harder to search for than words and he ended up scrolling past hundreds of tattoos, of everything from simple lines to elaborate full-length and full color sleeves to stupid misspellings. His phone was running low on battery, his eyes ready to give out, when he came across something similar to the mark that had appeared on Stiles’s previously bare arm.

Protection symbols.

The page wasn’t a tattoo page, per se. It had been linked to from a site that Derek couldn’t even remember, that endless snarl of links followed, down the rabbit hole and all. The site was some kind of new age, Wiccan thing. Derek half expected it to be all fairies and unicorns. Fucking glitter or something. Instead it seemed serious. The sign Stiles had on his arm – or something more similar than anything Derek had found so far – was there, clearly marked as a protection sigil.

Derek shut the phone down when it beeped, rubbing a hand across his eyes. Shift change came and went, one of the guys he didn’t really know barging into the room before he realized the Sheriff was still comatose on the sofa. Derek couldn’t sleep and now his head was throbbing with the dull ache of a headache.

Wiccan. What the hell did that even mean? People who danced around naked and were vegetarian or something. They probably were just really into Harry Potter. Thinking they were casting spells. Derek sneered at the idea. Too many bad fantasy video games and not enough hard reality. 

 

The Sheriff woke around five, took a look at Derek and let his shoulders droop. “No news.”

“Not for me. They’re… I work here and they know me and Stiles. But there’s rules. You’re his family and I’m…not.” Derek tried not to let his bitterness seep into his voice but it was pretty much a lost cause. “I’m sure he’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah.” The Sheriff scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “Coffee? Or is there anywhere I can wash up?”

“Bathroom?” Derek pointed to the door. “I’ll put a fresh pot on.”

That was how they dealt with each other. They didn’t talk about anything that actually mattered unless Stiles forced it out of them. Instead Derek and the Sheriff danced around each other, talking about grills and football and traffic accidents. It wasn’t like Derek could remember how he was supposed to act around a father. He only had Stiles to base it on and Stiles and his father were extraordinarily close. That was probably another reason the Sheriff didn’t trust him: the damn hole in his head (Stiles had called it that in a very stentorian manner), the place where all the memories of who he was, who he’d been, what he was looking for were.

The Sheriff looked like he hadn’t slept at all when he came back into the room, his eyes a little bloodshot. Derek handed over the coffee and pretended not to notice. Then they went back to waiting.

 

A nurse came down around six to tell them there was a slight improvement and that they were moving Stiles to a private room, easing off the sedation. Derek stood up with the Sheriff but hesitated when they started to leave.

“Do you want me…?” He hated asking almost as much as he hated feeling this way. He knew that Stiles’s dad still thought he had something to do with whatever was afflicting Stiles. Derek had heard the whispers of ‘he looks like he’s been beaten’ and ‘strong guy would do that’ and ‘how well do you know Derek Hale?’ that had been going around the ER when he’d walked out. 

The Sheriff looked at him, unseeing for a moment. “Yeah. Come on, son. He’ll just ask for you when he wakes up.”

Derek found his mouth twitching up at that. Stiles would do just that, complain vociferously until whatever was irritating him was resolved. Sometimes he needled Stiles to get that reaction, to make him talk and talk, the cadence of his voice, the way his hands waved in the air more important than any actual line of argument. Derek knew he was going to give in, eventually. It was what you did when you loved someone, after all.

 

Derek had said it first, which surprised him almost as much as it had surprised Stiles. They’d been in the grocery store, a few months after they’d met. Derek still had to check that he wasn’t hallucinating all this. He had a place, a steady job, a boyfriend. His life seemed to be made up of the usual blocks that people who were normal had. He kept expecting the urge to move on to raise its head again, the wind to pull him along the highway to somewhere new and yet just the same. But Stiles had decided that they were going to stay in and cook and be domestic and it was mildly sickening. Derek made sure they had a six pack of beer planted safely in the shopping cart before he felt any more of his manly macho credentials slip away.

Stiles had patted his cheek insultingly, and told him he was much too hairy mountain man to worry about that. Derek had pointedly tossed a new razor into the cart.

It was the fact Stiles had stopped to help some old lady reach a box of cereal on the top shelf that had Derek pinching himself to check this was real again. Stiles had called the woman by name, asked after her grandkids and smiled widely and dissemblingly as she asked if he was keeping out of trouble. Then he’d introduced Derek. Stiles was so certain that Derek was here, was his, was staying that he was introducing him to random acquaintances. As if Derek mattered.

Once they’d turned the corner, Derek crowded Stiles against the shelves and kissed him. “I love you.” The words slipped out, unexpected.

Stiles stared at him. ”What?”

Derek panicked. The very memory of it made him feel sick all over again. Maybe he’d misread the signs? Maybe he was wrong. Stiles was friendly, knew everyone. This was his town and he belonged here. Derek didn’t deserve to belong anywhere. He wasn’t sure why but he knew it, just like he knew his name was Derek Hale and that he liked smooth peanut butter and single malt.

“I’m just -“ Stiles had shaken himself, eyes wide. “You don’t - Not in the fucking grocery store, you dick. There should be, I don’t know, candles and red roses and white linen. Maybe ice cream. Wine. Not tins of beans and Mrs Chou’s grandkids and -“ Stiles ran out of words and grabbed Derek by the neck and hauled him in, kissing him hard. “I had a plan, you asshole.”

Now it was Derek’s turn to look bemused. “A plan?”

“I was - Fuck. I love you too. But we should have a re-do and I can tell you that after you’ve eaten the steak you’re going to grill and we’ve had really athletic and nasty sex.” Stiles might have said the last too loudly, given the interested look the bored girl by the register threw them.

“I don’t need steak,” Derek replied, after a minute, astonished at himself. He remembered that as he settled into one of the visitor’s chairs in Stiles’s room. He let the Sheriff take the padded leather seat beside the bed, closer to Stiles. Derek could monitor his breathing from here after all. There was a mottled blue, black, green and sick yellow stain on the side of Stiles’s neck, a circle of bruises like he’d been strangled. Derek was almost sure he could make out thumb prints over Stiles’s windpipe. A black eye swelled around one of his eyes. Derek was glad of the clean pajamas, the white sheets. It meant he couldn’t see what else was happening to Stiles. What else he was unable to stop.

Stiles’s heartbeat had quickened as they came into the room and he’d thrashed in the bed, making Derek hold his breath. He’d felt exposed as he reached out a hand, fingers brushing Stiles’s for just a moment. But it seemed to calm Stiles, make him settled into sleep again, lips falling apart. 

 

Derek slept eventually, curled himself into the chair and woke with a crick in his neck. He rubbed at it as he straightened up, the Sheriff still in the chair beside Stiles, his eyes open. The noises from the rest of the hospital – the PA, the stamp of feet, the constant whirr of machines – made the silence in the room even sharper.

They needed Stiles to start talking, to fill the silence. It was one of the things Derek pretended disdain for, alongside Stiles’s occasionally tendency to dress like he was still in high school. Stiles and his words seemed to be the glue that kept them all together.

They’d been silent, in the graveyard. Stiles had made a joke of ‘introducing you to my mom, dude’ but under the dancing eyes and calculatedly careless gesture had been a sincere desire. It wasn’t that Stiles thought his mom was there under the dirt. He just felt closer to her there. Sometimes, when his course load had seemed overwhelming and worry about his dad and money had driven Stiles into some kind of tightly wound clockwork automaton, he’d gone, alone, and come back red-eyed and quiet for a while. Derek hadn’t known what to say, wasn’t sure there was anything to say.

He’d gone back, on his own, later, and told the granite block that he would look after Stiles just like Stiles looked after him. And, yet, here he was in the hospital and there was nothing Derek could do.

Stiles stirred, his eyes flickering open after too long closed. His gaze wasn’t clear as he looked around the room. “Dad?” He sounded young and afraid and completely lost. The Sheriff leaned over into Stiles’s eye line and smiled reassuringly. Derek didn’t move. He was glued to his seat, his mouth dry, unable to speak. Stiles’s eyes flicked over to him, befuddled. “Derek?”

That had him moving towards Stiles who frowned at him, perplexed and… afraid. “What are you doing here?” The Sheriff shot him an unreadable look, slipping into work mode. 

Derek stuttered to a stop, his hand not quite reaching Stiles’s. “I’ll go.”

“No, stay. You should stay. Until… What happened to me?” Stiles’s voice cracked. His eyes fluttered shut again and he was quiet.

“I’ll go get a nurse,” Derek said, into the tense quiet. He slipped out of the room, feeling the grime of a day without a shower. He scrubbed his hand over his stubble and headed for the nurse’s station. “He woke up. For a bit.” Then he let her brush past him and headed for the stairs. He just needed some air, some coolness.

The bare concrete of the steps was cold even through his pants but Derek leaned against the wall and breathed. No one used these stairs, not normally, and he could breathe. Stiles was awake, which meant he should be fine and it didn’t matter if he didn’t understand who Derek was anymore. He could drop his stuff back at his dad’s, clean out the apartment, be gone by morning. No one else would miss him.

“Derek? Derek Hale?” There was a man looking through the door. A kid, really. Stiles’s age. That made Derek feel wrong and old again. When Derek looked at him, he came through the doors. He was tall and had a rough tumble of curls on his head. Derek decided that the word he wanted to use was willowy, which made him laugh at himself. He wasn’t prone to these fits of fancy. Sleep deprivation. Had to be. “I’m glad I found you.”

“Are you a friend of Stiles? I don’t know who they’ll let in. Sorry.” Derek should get to his feet but he felt like all his strings had been cut. The wall beside him was really the only reason he was upright in any way, shape or form.

“Nope.” The guy rocked on his heels, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Sorry,” Derek said again. “What can I help you with?”

The guy didn’t say anything. He just goggled at Derek for a moment before sliding his hands out of his pocket and coming to sit on the step below him. “I’m Isaac.” He said it like Derek should already have known. He ducked his head forward and Derek was able to see a tattoo peeking out of the top of his t-shirt. It looked, not exactly, but similar, to the one that had appeared on Stiles’s arm.

“What’s that?” Derek asked. He met Isaac’s surprised gaze and felt like he knew Isaac already. He recognized him. Perhaps he had seen him around town. “Stiles has – Well. He doesn’t. Didn’t. It appeared on his arm.”

Isaac nodded, slowly, as he took this in. “You don’t know me?”

“I - Sorry, man. I don’t. Unless I’ve seen you around town. You look familiar.” Derek shrugged. “Anyway. I should get back.”

Isaac shifted out of his way but stayed sitting on the steps as Derek made his way back through the swing door.

 

Stiles was asleep again when Derek slipped back into the room, the Sheriff having a soft conversation with one of the doctors. Derek hesitated but came over when the Sheriff gestured.

“Stiles seems to have stabilized. He’s healing now. Nothing permanent seems to have happened but -“ The doctor shook his head. “It’s strange. It’s like he suffered years’ worth of injuries – and violent ones at that – within a twenty-four hour period. They healed more quickly than they should have too. But none of that makes any sense.” The doctor tapped her pen against the clipboard that held Stiles’s chart. “I want to hold him for observation for the next twenty four hours, maintain his pain medication and monitor his condition. Reassess it then.”

Derek nodded, suddenly grateful. She didn’t need to include him in this explanation but, for all that it posed more questions than it answered, it made him feel that someone else cared, was looking out for Stiles.

“The last wound is interesting.” The doctor flipped back the sheet, revealing a clean bandage covering Stiles’s shoulder and part of his neck. “It looks like a bite. From a large dog, perhaps.” She peeled back the bandage and Derek peered closely. It was definitely teeth marks. A deep bite as well, from the look of it. He’d seen his share of animal bites as an EMT and he agreed with the dog guess, but it looked too wide, almost.

“Is it healing?” Derek traced his fingers along the puckered skin, glad Stiles was asleep for this. The wound was red raw, inflamed. He carefully fastened the bandage over the bite again, drew the sheets up because Stiles always felt the cold, needed to be kept warm. His own mind whirled. The bite was teasing at him, taunting him. He should know what it was but every time he tried to think about it, he hit up against that block in his brain. It wasn’t like a hole really, not like someone had reached in and extracted his memories. That had just always been what Stiles called it. It was more like someone had built a brick wall around his memories, a bank vault, and sealed them away. 

“Not like the others.” The doctor sighed. It was as if Stiles’s mysterious illness was as frustrating to her as it was to Derek and to the Sheriff. “Twenty four hours, gentlemen.” And with that, she left the room. 

Derek patted awkwardly at the blankets. He wanted to do something – run, again, he guessed – but there was nothing he could do.

“I should let Scott know.” The Sheriff pulled out his phone. “They keep telling me I can’t use it in here.”

“You could use the break room again?” Derek watched as the Sheriff hesitated. He read the action as not wanting to leave Derek alone with Stiles. It was probably more to do with not wanting to leave Stiles, but once the idea had flashed into Derek’s brain, it was hard to extricate it. The Sheriff patted Derek, awkwardly, on the back as he left the room.

Stiles didn’t wake up but his hand twitched towards Derek when he sat in the seat the Sheriff had previously occupied. Stiles was probably mistaking him for his father but Derek couldn’t resist reaching out and taking hold of Stiles’s fingers again. A flash of inappropriate memory, the first time Stiles had used his fingers to open Derek up, get him ready for his cock, made Derek blush as he held on to them. 

It was as if his life had begun when he met Stiles in that diner. Not in the melodramatic exaggeratedly romantic way. It was deeper than that. It was as if all his memories before then were vague and intangible and after Stiles they were vivid and real. The noise Stiles made when Derek left a hickey on his hip, the way he smelled after a day at school and the ride home – bubblegum, white board marker and sarcasm. Everything was brilliant and garish and true.

A soft tap at the door made him look up, snapped him away from his constant tracing of the path between the moles on Stiles’s cheek. Isaac, from earlier, was there. Derek wondered about this stranger who seemed to know him. Maybe he had one of the keys to the vault. Derek nodded his permission but didn’t move otherwise, keeping his hand under Stiles’s.

“How is he?” Isaac looked a little worried. “Will he recover?”

“They don’t know what happened to him.” Derek kept his voice soft and quiet, a hint that Isaac should consider whispering too. It seemed disrespectful to Stiles be talking over him like this. Of course, if it had been Stiles, Derek would have known Isaac’s life story, romantic prospects, shoe size… Maybe not. But Stiles wouldn’t have stalled the conversation. He would have known what to say.

“It’s not your fault, Derek.” Isaac seemed certain of that. He didn’t sit down but swayed from foot to foot. “I know… How long have you been here?”

“In the hospital? I came on shift yesterday at 5. I haven’t left.” Derek felt like he was providing an alibi.

Isaac shook his head and his curls tumbled around his temples. “No. _Here_?”

“In Beacon Hills? Three years, I guess.” It was a strange question but Derek was willing to play along for now. He had to trust his instincts and they told him to listen to Isaac, to believe him. Isaac chewed his lip, looking between Derek and the bed. “Why do you want to know?”

“What about Laura? Or Peter?” Isaac watched him closely as he dropped the names. “Kate Argent? Do you know them?”

They didn’t mean anything to Derek. Or, more accurately, they didn’t mean anything to Derek the EMT. They sounded familiar. Maybe they were characters in a TV show Stiles watched. But Derek shook his head, watching Stiles carefully as he shifted. His eyes were moving under their lids again, suggesting he was close to waking. “Sorry.”

Isaac wavered when Derek turned his eyes back, his edges blurring. Derek stared at him. That wasn’t… Okay. It had looked like Isaac was fading out, like he was a projection or something. Isaac pulled himself together. “You have to tell him that it didn’t work. Tell him it seemed to but it doesn’t last. He might get it.”

“What?” That made absolutely no sense. Derek was almost ready to clamber to his feet and demand Isaac leave when Isaac faded out again. Derek could see the wall through him. He clung to the arm of the chair with his free hand.

Isaac seemed urgent now. “Tell Stiles- Tell him to look up the tattoo. It might spark his memory. Then he can help you get back.”

“Get back to where? And that Wiccan thing? Why? What’s going on?” Isaac was almost completely translucent, an afterimage left on an old style photograph.

Isaac tried one more time and Derek had to listen clearly to hear the words. “The spell didn’t work. Tell…” And then Isaac was gone. Derek stared at the space where he’d been. That was… Stiles might have believed it, if he’d seen it, but Derek was having a hard time. He was an EMT, he worked in Beacon Hills Mercy Hospital. His usual shift partner was called Alex. His name was Derek Hale. His boyfriend was Stiles Stilinksi. He liked to work out. And he saw people who faded out of existence after leaving him cryptic messages.

Stiles shifted on the bed, waking up. “Derek?” His throat sounded dry and Derek grabbed the cup from the cabinet beside the bed and offered it to Stiles, straw first. Stiles always had an interesting way with a straw, chewing on it. “So I still know you, huh?”

“Of course you know me.” The idea that Stiles didn’t sent a cold chill through Derek. “We’ve been living together for a year. You know that.” Derek’s voice was slightly shaky to begin with so he injected as much confidence into it as he could.

Stiles went red at that, concentrated on drinking. He kept looking at Derek from under his lashes, trying to seem subtle. But Stiles was a subtle as a bulldozer at the best of times.

“How do you feel?” Derek asked, when he moved the cup away.

“Like I’m on some really good painkillers.” Stiles half smirked at that. “Not that you’d appreciate the healing magic of opiates.”

“They can be addictive,” Derek said. Stiles didn’t look high. His pupils weren’t blown wide. In fact, he let out a dry chuckle as Derek leaned over to check.

“Nice uniform.” 

“You’ve seen me in this for two years.” Derek rested his forehead against Stiles’s. “Shit. I’m just glad you’re awake.”

When Stiles shrank back against the pillow, pulling away from Derek, Derek froze. It was hard to get himself moving again. All Derek wanted to do was grab Stiles and bury his face in the space between his neck and shoulder. He wanted to crawl onto the too small bed and curl up around Stiles and protect him from the rest of the world. But it didn’t matter what Derek wanted. He slid back to the chair, settled himself in it, and watched Stiles.

“Your dad went to call Scott, let him know how you’re doing. They say you’ll probably get home tomorrow. They don’t know what happened.” Derek grinned as Stiles counted off the answers to the questions he was going to ask. “You have a bite on your shoulder.” Derek wasn’t entirely sure why he said that.

Stiles twisted around to pull the sheets away and Derek got out of the chair to help him peel back the bandage. Stiles tensed when Derek’s fingers brushed his skin but he took a deep breath and forced himself to relax as Derek held the gauze away from his skin. Stiles prodded at it, hummed under his breath and let Derek tape it back again.

“There’s… There’s something else.” Derek heaved in a steadying breath, perched himself on the side of the bed and… stalled. He had no idea how to explain the whole Isaac situation. “You’ve got a tattoo.”

“Yeah. So do you.” Stiles waggled his eyebrows. “Even if we didn’t apparently know each other like this, I’d know that because of your epic shirt allergy.”

“Just because you get cold,” Derek muttered. It was an old argument. He ignored the rest of Stiles’s statement. “There was a guy. Isaac. That’s what he said his name was. He knew me.”

“Yup. Okay. What did he say?” Stiles’s eyes wandered over Derek’s face, searching for something. “Did he…do anything?”

“He vanished.” Derek raised his eyebrows to show his complete disbelief that he was even saying it. Stiles just nodded though, almost as if he’d been expecting it. Derek realized that had been the way Stiles nodded when Derek had slid into the booth in the diner, when Derek had said he loved him, when Derek had handed over the spare key to his apartment. Stiles raised his hand, hesitated, then laid it flat on Derek’s leg. “Before - I’m just going to say this before your dad comes back. He said to tell you that the spell didn’t work.”

“Kinda guessing that,” Stiles said. “Some of it worked.”

“Stiles, I know that you’ve been hurt and I know that you’re in hospital. But spells? And vanishing people? That’s just…crazy.” Derek rolled his eyes, trying to make light of it all. He could feel the ground shifting under him, like everything he knew was being stripped away. He’d felt like he was walking on a thin crust of earth, a fragile, breakable shell that would shatter with just the one wrong move. This felt like one of those wrong moves.

Stiles’s hand tightened on his leg. “Well, you’re not a werewolf, so there’s that.” Then Stiles lay back again as his dad came back through the door.

 

Derek headed back to his apartment, wondered why the place felt so empty and had a shower. He ate, something tasteless reheated in the microwave. He checked the landline, charged his phone. Stared blindly at the news for half an hour. He even laid down on their bed and closed his eyes and tried to sleep like Stiles had suggested. The sheets smelled like Stiles.

The first time Stiles had slept over they hadn’t fucked yet. Instead they’d been watching movies, old ones Derek couldn’t remember. He’d been entirely wrapped up in _Casablanca_ , rooting for Ilsa and Rick as Stiles quoted along with lines behind him on the sofa. It had got late and between one moment and another, both of them had drifted off to sleep. Derek had woken at three when the TV bleeped as it switched off. Stiles had been curled up, one arm trailing off the couch towards the floor and Derek. Derek had woken him when he’d tried to pull off his shoes carefully but Stiles hadn’t been annoyed. Instead he kicked them off, demanded Derek let him use the bed as he was a guest, and stripped off his loose jeans before crawling under Derek’s comforter. 

Derek had sat on the sofa, not sure what the rules were, where the boundaries lay. Stiles had yelled out that Derek needed to join him to keep his feet warm in this ice box. He’d woken up in the morning with Stiles’s hand wrapped in his hair. 

He gave up on sleep, grabbed his book and stared at the jumbled words until he gave up on that too. He wanted to head back to the hospital, wait beside Stiles but Stiles had ordered him home. Derek was still exhausted, still running on panic and adrenaline and worry but he couldn’t settle. He finally gave up on trying to sleep and pulled on his running gear. If he couldn’t sleep because his mind wouldn’t settle, he’d exhaust himself physically.

The path to the preserve was pretty much a dirt track. Kids occasionally drove totally unsuitable cars down here and got stuck in the mud and Derek let them call a tow from his. Stiles had joked that it was because they were drawn towards Derek’s gorgeous face, but Derek tended to tackle him to the couch and kiss him quiet at that. Derek knew the path through the trees as well. He’d been running this path almost as long as he’d been in Beacon Hills. He knew when he needed to dig in, take longer strides to crest the hill and when to reign it in so as not to slip.

Derek liked running. He liked driving his heart to beat faster, make it harder to breath, push his body right to the edge of what it could take. Sure he made use of the gym membership Stiles had bought him one Christmas but nothing beat racing through the woods, just himself, the trees and the regular beat of his feet on the dirt as company. Heat of summer, depths of winter; didn’t matter as long as he could be outside.

The wind was behind him as he climbed the last embankment towards the clearing in the center of the preserve. Derek had brought Stiles out here one time for a picnic – for take out and make out as Stiles termed any of Derek’s attempts to help him enjoy the outdoors. Stiles, as he repeated time and again, was not built for outside. He burned like a lobster at the slightest bit of sun, he was skinny, gangly and pale. He was meant for video games and DVD marathons and sex as exercise, and Derek should get on with that right now.

Cresting the hill, Derek realized that the clearing wasn’t empty. Derek skidded to a halt and rested his hand on his knees. He was exhausted, sleep-deprived. He was seeing things. Hallucinating. Derek screwed his eyes shut before straightening up and examining the scene in front of him. Deep in his gut, there was the same sort of feeling as he’d had with Isaac – Derek knew this place. Equally similar, the sight in front of him seemed soft around the edges, as if it wasn’t exactly there. But the wreck of a burned house that stood there looked real enough. It even smelled like wet, rotten, burned wood.

It would have been a big house, full of family. There would have been bedrooms to spare, guests, extended family welcome at a moment’s notice. It would have had a bright, sunlight kitchen, facing south across the clearing towards the lake at the far side of the woods, just visible in the distance. Derek could see it so clearly it was more of a memory than a figment of his imagination. It was real, tangible. And it made the burnt husk even worse to look at. If this had once been full of life and normality, the burned out building was the exact opposite.

Derek’s legs gave out, suddenly, a wave of exhaustion sweeping over him. He sat on the damp grass and look at the shimmering mirage in front of him. Sometimes when he remembered things, out of the blue, he puzzled over them, dug away at them, worried them like a loose tooth. Most of the time he got caught up in his actual life: Stiles, work. Beer with the guys. Stiles. Stiles was really fucking distracting.

It wasn’t just the sex. Although, when Derek thought about it, the sex was damn good. It was the way Stiles seemed to just turn on the air in the room when he ranted about whatever had caught his attention. He got under Derek’s skin, made him angrier than anyone else Derek had ever come across. It was weirdly exhilarating.

He didn’t have Stiles to fall back on right now. Instead he was faced with a burned up husk of a house, a vanishing guy called Isaac and the possibility that he’d beaten his boyfriend and didn’t remember it. That was basically his only rational, logical explanation for Stiles’s injuries. Derek stared at the house as it seemed to get more solid, settle into place like it had always been in this clearing. There was a strange mark on the door, an angular version of the elegant curves on his own back, dangerous and sharp.

It was that, as much as anything, that let him know this was real and it was connected to him and there was nothing he could do about it. It was time to blow up the vault in his brain. And there was only one person who seemed to know anything about it: Stiles.

 

It was as if making the decision to find out what was going on had flicked a switch. On the way back to the hospital, everything around Derek seemed to shimmer – his car flicked between his truck and a black, sleek Camaro, the type he’d always dreamed about owning. The coffee place Stiles swore was heaven on earth flicked between a Starbucks and its usual quirky appearance. Some buildings seemed to vanish and others appear. Even the local high school’s sign supporting their football team changed to one supporting lacrosse. Derek felt like everything was spiraling away from him.

The hospital hadn’t changed any, not really. The faces of people he passed however, twisted nightmarishly between the colleagues, acquaintances and friends he knew to strangers. It was worse when a friendly smile flicked to blank faced incomprehension in the middle of a greeting. Derek was shaking as he pushed into Stiles’s room, past the nurse who tried to keep him out. Stiles was propped up on the pillows now, fewer machines attached. He looked better – the bruises seemed to have mostly vanished. He also didn’t flicker like the others.

“What’s happening, Stiles? Why is there a house in the woods? What’s…?” Derek stuttered to a halt as he realized Stiles wasn’t alone. Scott was sprawled in the chair at the end of the bed, the Sheriff was looking at Derek like he wanted to arrest him (like he had probable cause this time as well). And, leaning against the wall was Isaac.

It was obvious that they’d just been talking about him. 

“We’re going to head to the cafeteria.” The Sheriff stood up, grabbed his coat and nodded to Scott. “Get some lunch.” He led them out of the room, Scott shooting Derek a suspicious glare before he closed the door.

“That was Isaac. Who vanished before. He said he didn’t know you.” Derek wondered if he should follow them, demand answers.

“He knows me. He knows you better.” Stiles shrugged. “I’m going to show you something, okay?” He twisted himself around, peeling the bandage off the bite. It was still there, red and vivid against his pale skin. “Don’t freak out, but this is a werewolf bite.”

“Werewolves don’t exist, Stiles. They’re only in books, right? I know you read Twilight and I know you hated it.” Derek started for the chair before he changed his mind and sat on the edge of the bed, Stiles shuffling over to make room for him. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Stiles looked almost shocked at it.

“I obviously had something to do with this, with the way you won’t touch me and the way your dad was glaring.” Derek aimed to keep his voice even but the only way he could do that was by fixing his eyes on Stiles’s collarbone, crossed with teeth marks. “I can’t remember.”

“Not Scott? You don’t think Scott glaring is weird.” Stiles waited a moment and then reached out his hand and deliberately grabbed one of Derek’s, making him look up.

“Scott always looks at me like that. Like he can’t believe I showed up and get to have a piece of you.” Derek thought over what he’d said. “Not the sex thing. Although maybe he doesn’t like that?” 

Stiles just rolled his eyes. That had always been Derek’s thing – the eye-rolling. He could have entire conversations with his eyebrows and his eye rolls. Expressive, Stiles had called it. “I know what’s happening. You have to believe me.”

Derek wanted to brush this off as some practical joke but too much was happening to him to disregard it completely. He thought about everything he’d seen, the people in the hospital who shifted mid expression. “It’s- This is going to sound strange. But you keep going on about fucking werewolves, so... It’s like there’s two Beacon Hills, two versions of it. And one is trying to take over from the other. And I can see both.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like that.” Stiles kicked at the blankets covering his feet. He managed to work them free enough to slide over on the bed and make room for him to pull Derek down to lie beside him. “It was a cure, I suppose.”

Derek didn’t say anything. Instead he laid himself out close to Stiles, his arm across Stiles’s midriff, holding him close. Stiles relaxed into the touch. His memory waved, part of him reckoning that he and Stiles had never done this before and knowing that they’d done this over and over again, held each other close and ignored the rest of the world.

“I can remember it, you know. Remember both versions. And I know why it’s all happening and you don’t and it must be driving you nuts.” Stiles ran his hand through Derek’s hair. “It’s my fault.”

Derek thought back over the last days, from seeing Stiles covered in blood and fainting on the floor of the ER, through the worry of not knowing if Stiles was going to be okay, to the giant hole in his head where his memories should be. “It’s not your fault.” Derek stopped but Stiles kept teasing his fingers through Derek’s hair. “But I want to know if you’re alright. I can deal with whatever’s happening.”

“Fuck, Derek. You really do have a martyr complex.” Stiles didn’t stop his hands from moving through Derek’s hair. “I got bit. It wasn’t you – a rogue alpha. And I got it into my head that if there was no such thing as werewolves then I wouldn’t have been bit and I wouldn’t…”

Derek decided to ignore the fact werewolves didn’t exist. “What happens when you get bit?”

“Either you turn into a werewolf or you die. Or you’re Lydia. I’m not Lydia.” Stiles seemed to relax at this, able to explain things. He really was a natural teacher.

“Yeah.” The idea of dating Stiles’s terrifying friend made Derek almost want to laugh. “And that’s good.”

“No – she’s – ahh. Forget it. So I didn’t want to die and I didn’t want to be a werewolf and so, cure.” Stiles’s voice drifted off towards the end. “I didn’t realize that it would cause all this.”

Derek couldn’t take the hurt in Stiles’s voice. It was automatic for him to turn his head and brush his lips across Stiles’s mouth. Stiles tasted of lime jello – someone must have been slipping him it – and toothpaste. It didn’t matter. Derek pressed closer when he felt Stiles part his mouth, kiss back. Some part of Derek that had been crying out settled as Stiles ran his hand over Derek’s side. The kiss turned heated and they were necking like teenagers before the mood shifted again and the kissing became slow, deep, like the Sunday morning screwing when they had all the time in the world and no place to be.

“We’re not together, in that other Beacon Hills.” Stiles forced the words out when they parted. “I’m pretty sure I’d like us to be but we’re not.”

“What’s going to happen, Stiles?” Derek almost didn’t want to know. He was terrified enough at the idea of not being with Stiles, of not having Stiles at his side through whatever his life was like. It was bad enough that Stiles though he was a werewolf.

“Isaac wants me to break the spell. I cast it and apparently I can break it. That’s why I was the first one affected by the whole –“ Stiles waved his arms about, indicated his presence in the hospital and all the medical gear. “Then we’ll start again, back where I cast the spell. And I guess I find out if I’m going to live, die or be a supernatural creature of the night.”

“Don’t be so casual about it,” Derek rebuked him. “You’ve got to be fine, Stiles.” A sick black feeling, all the worry and anxiety and panic of the last three days at once, choked him and he tightened his grip on Stiles, just for a moment, as if holding him close would mean Stiles would be okay.

“Because wishing for things apparently makes them come true.” Stiles kicked at Derek, for all that the sheets were still covering his legs. “You’re going to promise to look after my dad. He doesn’t hate you. And I want you to make sure they bury me next to Mom.”

Derek leaned forward and kissed Stiles again. He couldn’t listen to that, couldn’t take it in. Stiles was fine – he’d healed from everything his body put him through. He was stronger than Derek was, for all the jokes about muscle men and gym addicts. Stiles had the kind of strength that let him weather all storms, take on all comers. He was steel, through and through.

“It’s going to happen anyway, Derek. We have to be practical. The spell is unraveling fast. It’s only going to be a matter of days before it all slots together again.” Stiles was deadly serious. “You have to listen to me.”

“I’m listening.” Derek hooked his ankle over Stiles’s, held him close. “You should do it now, fast.”

“Like pulling a band aid off.” Derek had trotted that line out a million times, urging Stiles to just get things done and stop procrastinating. He normally got sneakers thrown at his head when he said it. He didn’t throw anything at Stiles.

Derek summoned up his courage. “Do you think I’ll remember this?”

“I don’t know.”

They lay in silence for a long moment before Stiles leaned close and pressed a kiss to Derek’s mouth one more time. “For luck.”

 

When the spell was broken, Derek had a moment of wondering where he was before everything snapped back into him, like he’d been watching a movie and he’d switched it off and closed his eyes. Derek lay on his back in the dirt on the lacrosse field. Across from him, Scott sliced his claws across the rogue alpha’s throat, kneeling up and letting out an almighty howl when his eyes flashed red and all that power flowed into him. Derek could sympathize. He remembered it feel like a thousand hot pokers being pressed against every nerve ending in his body at once. And then when that stopped, it was like some kind of orgasmic relief, the best sex ever.

A soft groan had Derek turning away from Scott and crawling across to where Stiles lay. Derek could feel the flesh knitting together in his belly, but he ignored it to make his way across the scrub of grass. Stiles met his eyes steadily. “Hey. You remember what I said?”

“I remember.” Derek watched Stiles close his eyes against the pain in his shoulder, swallow hard. “The full moon’s a week away.”

“And I get to join the furry bunch for real, right? If I’m lucky. Go me!” Stiles weakly punched the air. 

Scott came over to join them, his eyes still glowing red. “Do I get to say, ‘I’m the Alpha now’?” Derek snorted at that and Stiles let out a bark of laughter that tailed off abruptly when it hurt.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re all special. But I really don’t want to bleed out on the lacrosse pitch…” Derek helped Stiles climb to his feet. “It’s a little bit too much like a high school flashback.”

Derek saw them to Stiles’s jeep, watched Scott navigate around the empty lot before turning in the direction of the Stilinski house. He waited until the sound of the jeep had faded before he turned to the unpleasant task of body disposal. He’d need to find an open grave to dump it in.

 

Stiles worked in the diner, helping pay for books, tuition and his share of the pizza that fuelled his final year at college. He made the worst coffee.

Derek slid into a booth and Stiles fell into the seat opposite. “So this is familiar.”

Derek just watched him for a moment. “How’re you?”

“I’m okay. Not dead yet. So, thinking I’m gonna start having my time of the month shortly.” Stiles waggled his eyebrows and Derek couldn’t help but shake his head in disappointment. “You?”

“Most of it’s fading. I guess it’ll all pretty much go.” Derek was quite happy to let a lot of it go. It didn’t sit well with him, with this version of him. “Some of it had me thinking though.”

“What? You going to get a real apartment?” Stiles kicked his foot across the space between them. That was a holdover from Other Stiles. How he’d dealt with all the bruises without werewolf healing made him question his sanity yet again. Then Derek paused. He couldn’t remember most of what he’d done with Stiles and partly he was glad. He remembered the feeling though, that, when even everything seemed to be falling apart around him, Stiles remained, solid and strong. Derek wanted that, selfishly.

“Maybe. More – you want to get decent coffee sometime?” Derek studied the tear in the top of his menu, absolutely fascinated by it.

“Yes.” Stiles kicked him again for good measure. “Just go with it, right?”


End file.
